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Basic Coloring Tutorial

BASIC COLORING TUTORIAL
By Mass Zero

Basic Photoshop knowledge is expected!!

1. Selecting an image

First of all, you'll of course need an image you want to color. The image you want to color should be as clean as possible, meaning little to no dust, dark lines and you'll also want to make sure it has as little grey areas as possible. Of course it's always possible to clean an image, but I'm not going through the trouble of explaining you that in this tutorial.

For the tutorial, I'll be using the image below:

2. Preparing the image

Open up the image in Photoshop, right click the layer and select Blending Options... In the Blend Mode dropdown box, select Multiply and hit OK.

(Note: If the layer's locked, duplicate it and remove the locked layer. Apply the actions to the duplicated layer.)

Spoiler!

Create a new layer (CTRL+Shift+N) and name it Background. (For your own convenience.) Drag the layer to below the lineart layer and use the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to fill it with a very awkward color, green or pink for example.

Why do this? Because it's easier to see if you missed coloring a spot, like this.

Spoiler!

3. Applying colors

Now it's time to start applying some colors. On top of the Background layer, create a new layer. I'll be starting off with coloring Yami's skin, so I'm going to create a new layer called Skin. On that layer, start coloring her skin, using the Brush Tool (B) with the desired color. Try to stay inside the lines as much as possible.

Spoiler!

"What?! You didn't stay inside the lines!" Indeed I didn't and the reason for that is simple: The parts where I didn't stay inside the lines will, on another layer (Above the skin layer!), be covered by other colors, for instance her hair and eyes. Let's just create a new layer called Hair, on top of the skin layer, color it the same way and see how that works!

Spoiler!

From here on it's just more of the same; Creating new layers and coloring them. It's really easy. Here's what I got:

Spoiler!

4. What's next?

Now that you've got the base of the image done, one of your next steps could be shadows. Shadows practically work the same: You create a new layer and you start coloring, only this time you'll have to use your imagination a bit more.

Here's my attempt at cell-shading for this image, it's very minimal, but you get the point:

Spoiler!

Again the same as the rest of the coloring process are highlights, like these:

Spoiler!

Of course there's lots more you could do with the image, like effects all over and whatnot, but this is just the basics and that's all you're gonna get from me. :p

Here's the end result:

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. If you have any comments, feel free to comment. If you have any fixes, fix away.